06 July 2016

This is the Aston Martin AM-RB 001, Red Bull's shot at making the world's fastest production car

The AM-RB 001, Aston Martin and Red Bull's hypercar, was unveiled to the public for the first time today at Aston Martin's UK headquarters.

At the launch today, Aston CEO Andy Palmer said there would never be more than 150 of the extreme machines on the road, and could be as few as 99. In addition to the roadgoing version, there'll also be 25 track-only versions made.

The AM-RB 001 is a mid-engined beast with a naturally aspirated V-12 and a promised 1 horsepower-per-kilogram power-to-weight ratio, but beyond that Aston Martin hasn't revealed too many technical details. It's tasked with the singular mission of being the fastest production vehicle in the world — an interesting time to be gunning for that particular record with Bugatti's superlative Chiron coming soonand gunning for the exact same thing.

The model is expected to change "in millimeters" before the launch, but today's showing is very close to the final version. The AM-RB 001 will be available in spring 2018; the viewing today is mostly aimed at potential buyers and press.

Prior to today, very little was known about the car apart from a particularly extreme sketch; the actual car looks a little more normal, it turns out (at least by hypercar standards). Technical development of the vehicle is being handled by superstar F1 guru Adrian Newey, who went to Red Bull's F1 team in 2006 and still works there in addition to his work on the AM-RB 001.